Heads up as well, Roku is turning to shit. They're getting real aggressive about monetizing ads (gonna start putting them on Home page on TVs, applied for a patent to show ads over other content), and they're pulling stuff like this:
Users are opted in automatically unless they write a letter to Roku by March 21.
arstechnica.com
They were already becoming more and more of a paint when setting up a device.
We're slowly moving to a rotating our streaming service model: maybe keep one core service, and subscribe/cancel when there are other things we want to watch. Then, we never spend too much on streaming.
As for how we watch: current TV is an old, dumb 14 year old 1080p LCD. We have a Windows-based HTPC hooked up and an Xfinity Flex box. The flex thing is kind of a POS, but it was free with my Internet service, so useful for the paramount+ app or occasional free movie from Xfinity. PC handles the rest: Blu-ray, ripped movies/TV shows, Netflix app, web-based watching...
I'm planning on doing that, especially since they all started jacking up their prices and Netflix isn't grandfathering in any longer (had gotten grandfathered at $7.99 for years, then $9.99, and now I think its $11.99 in like the span of like 2 years; I barely ever watch it and it serves as "NCIS background noise" for other in the household; I'll probably wait til end of Stranger Things - which sucks they never sold seasons 3 and 4 on Blu-Ray just DVD).
I was able to get the Hulu $0.99/month for a year deal last year otherwise I would've given it up (actually was able to get that deal because I'd cancelled Hulu/Disney+ since they jacked up the price after letting it stay at the bundle price for about 6 months). Disney+ was a couple of extra (not sure if that's changing since they're turning into a single service?), and then got Starz for 6 months for cheap as well (wanted to watch Party Down season 3 and then watched several movies so it was worth it but don't see keeping it). Got Paramount+ free for like 3-4 months and it included Showtime. And every so often I'll get a free month of Prime and catch up on some stuff on there. Never bothered with HBO (I'm just not that into it; stopped watching Game of Thrones where I stopped in the books and never had interest in finishing either; only show I was interested in was Our Flag Means Death but its not worth bothering with the mess that it is these days, let alone their inflated pricing; might do a free trial to finish Our Flag Means Death and maybe finally watch The Wire at some point).
Still need to do the 3 months AppleTV trial too.
Most of my streaming is on Tubi (mostly as its the best for more obscure older stuff) and YouTube. Unfortunately it looks like the former has started to get popular enough (I think it might be owned by the part of Fox that Murdoch still owns too) that they might transition to a typical streaming service (i.e. subscriptions), and YouTube is clearly trying to monetize. Once my Apple Music trial is up I'll probably finally subscribe, although I'm unbundling from Google.
I'm actually starting to move to physical media for movies again, while I still can at least. Too much stuff that I can't view basically anywhere. And that's gonna get worse as physical media dies off. And a lot of stuff never even got Blu-ray releases. Guess I'll need to look into high quality upscaling/processing for DVDs or something. Or get real weird and start trading physical copies of like Despcialized Star Wars LaserDiscs.
